April 8 2017
THE FUTURE OF MONEY; THE MONEY OF THE FUTURE. (2)
Sometimes – well quite often, actually – I refer to the Bible, that ancient book. The word BIBLE means BOOK, from the Greek BIBLOS, also known as the Book of Books (Ho toon(pronounced tone) Bibloon Biblos in Greek). To make it easier I usually indicate where to find the Bible story.
Take Luke 20:24: there the Pharisees ask Jesus a money question. “Dear Rabbi’, they say quite politely, “Should Jews pay the Rome-imposed head tax?”
Tricky question, this: these fellows were not stupid. If Jesus says “no”, then these church officials will accuse him of rebellion; if Jesus says “yes” then he goes against the crowd which surrounds him, all vehemently opposed to this hated tax.
Jesus – who never carries money – calls for a denarius, a common Roman money piece. Lots of people try to hand him one, eager to hear his answer. He takes it from someone near to him and gives him or her a wink. (A lot of women followed Jesus, and some actually supported him financially). He smiles at the crowd and then in general, asks: “Whose image is featured here?” The crowd promptly answers, “Caesar’s.” Jesus replies: “Give to Caesar what belongs to him and to God the things that are God’s.”
This seemingly simple answer has generated a tremendous a lot of confusion. On it the church has based the separation of church and state by interpreting this to mean that there are two important divisions in society: God and the State, Grace and Nature. We see this ‘dualism’ constantly displayed in our time. Both Paul Ryan and Steve Bannon, two prominent persons in the TRUMP administration, are devoted Roman Catholics. They totally separate God from their politics, something most church people do, believing that education, politics, business, or even the environment are neutral and have nothing to do with God or religion, separating grace- the church- from nature – the rest of life.
So what does Jesus’ answer really mean?
Jesus said: Give that denarius back to Tiberius, the then emperor. But, of course, we can’t do that because he doesn’t own that coin any more than the heirs of George Washington or Queen Elizabeth do own the bank notes which carry their image.
Jesus’ one-line reply is indeed inspired. He touches upon two important segments of society: the political-economic reality represented by Caesar and money on the one hand, and the eternal as expressed in the Kingdom of God on the other.
By identifying the denarius with Caesar – let him have it – Jesus implies that he would not support an armed revolt or even passive resistance to Rome, implying that the tax and the coins themselves are simply a human device and that all of life, including money, is religion, is eternal, is part of God’s kingdom.
Jesus’ radical message.
By proclaiming an almost puritanical and revolutionary renunciation of money by even refusing to carry it, Jesus demonstrates to us that we too must see everything in terms of The Kingdom to Come, his glorious new creation. The Church on the other hand, almost without exception, explains this passage to mean that most of life has nothing to do with the Kingdom, evident in the fact that it is failing to proclaim “Seek first the Kingdom”, the welfare of God’s Created Holy Word.
It’s exactly there where today’s Christianity – maybe I should called it CHURCHDOM – is flunking the ultimate test, just as it did 2000 years ago when it condemned Jesus, the Word become Human, to death. Here – and I cannot emphasize this enough – we come face to face with the failure of the church today.
Let’s face it: in our Western world, everything is about money: the stock market, the strength of the dollar, the price of gold: three items mentioned in almost every newscast. Mammon is God, the Dollar is King in the world and its possession a holy grail.
We now put a price tag on everything. First on Jesus – 30 pieces of silver – and now also on the rest of creation: the woods are paved, the mountains mined, the seas eaten, species eliminated: all because of money. We sell God’s kingdom again and again, just as Judas did.
We all participate in that criminal act. Jesus was sold for the price of a slave: we are selling creation to serve us as a slave. We, Christian North America, 6 percent of the world’s population, cause 40 percent of the world’s pollution, in perfect accordance with the aims of Capitalism which defines itself as Creative Destruction.
I am more and more inclined to think that Capitalism and its exponent, the global money economy, serves the Anti-Christ. I think that’s why Jesus feared money because he foresaw how destructive it would be for him, for his creation and for us. He died so that we too could be included in his life, a resurrection life, a far better totally earthly life than we can ever live in a money society.
If we want to share in that life then we must regain a new sense of value; we must reset our priorities to have our treasures expressed not in money but in love, in genuine compassion for all God’s creatures, humans, animals, trees, flowers, air, water. God so loved the cosmos…. (John 3:16)
Finally: the Future of MONEY
Sweden is on track to become the world’s first completely cashless economy: everything is transacted via a digital device, so that we – and the State – can totally check what we do with our money, and tax avoidance is prevented.
Perhaps the number 666 is the universal PIN number encoded in every transaction. It portrays the rule of the Anti-Christ as more and more nations go cashless. Last year November India got rid of its highest denomination bills, eliminating 90 percent of its paper money. Other nations are following suit.
The future of money is digital, with all the dangers involved therein, such as hacking, power outages, and especially FRAUD.
Cashless life is a win for big Government: they are in full control: no more tax evasion. The paradox is that money, in its present form, is the symbol of both CAPITALISM and CAPITULATION, the unconditional surrender of ourselves to the forces of evil: that’s why, just like Jesus, we must free ourselves from the clutches of money, because the future of a society dominated by money means death.
Consider Germany 1939-45. Hitler created money out of nothing to finance World War II. In the process 60 million people were killed and most of Europe destroyed. Today we do the same again, this time to CREATION, through Quantitative Easing in the USA and the Draghi measures in Europe. The result now will be the destruction of the entire planet and the death of billions.
CAPITALISM
Capitalism and the fossil economy go hand in hand. TRUMP, the ultimate capitalist, last week confirmed this by declaring Obama’s rules on the environment null and void, and that in a country, where 6 percent of the world population already produces 40 percent of the CO2 emission. Compare this to the 45 percent of humanity which is only responsible for 7 percent of Green House Gases. We, the rich, whether Christian or atheist, whether Muslim or Jew, we are primarily responsible for the climate disasters that await us, thanks to Capitalism, of which MONEY is its most prominent feature.
As I have stated, money is created through debt. When I approach the bank for a mortgage the bank uses my property as collateral and gives me a draft for whatever amount I need, creating the money out of nothing and burdening me with DEBT. The bank trusts that property values will not decrease because if the loan exceeds the amount I owe, we both are in trouble: I lose the house and the bank is stuck for some loss.
In many languages debt and sin are expressed with the same word. In the Lord’s Prayer we often interchange “Forgive us our debts” with “Forgive us our sins.” In German and in Dutch the word “Schuld” means both debt and sin.
As I have noted before, Debt, Schuld, now burdens the entire world, all too well illustrated in the USDEBTCLOCK.ORG, where on April 28 the US accumulated deficit will exceed Twenty Trillion Dollars, or more than $60,000 for each American. By law this amount may not be exceeded. This amount does not include state debt, corporate debt, mortgage debt, credit card debt, auto debt, easily doubling it. Indeed DEBT will do us in: debt will become death, affirming that what the Bible unambiguously has asserted: (The Lust for) money is the root of all evil.
Yes, the Bible does indeed speak to today’s secular world.
The world, now burdened by debt, has debt so great that it never can be repaid because it has exceeded all possible remedies. This would never have been the case had it followed the Bible, and the instructions as outlined in Leviticus 25.
THE YEAR OF JUBILEE
There it says (verse 8) “?‘Count off seven sabbath years—seven times seven years—so that the seven sabbath years amount to a period of forty-nine years.
9. Then have the trumpet sounded everywhere on the tenth day of the seventh month; on the Day of Atonement sound the trumpet throughout your land.
10. Consecrate the fiftieth year and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you; each of you is to return to your family property and to your own clan.
11. The fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; do not sow and do not reap what grows of itself or harvest the untended vines.
12. For it is a jubilee and is to be holy for you; eat only what is taken directly from the fields.
13. In this Year of Jubilee everyone is to return to their own property.
18. ‘Follow my decrees and be careful to obey my laws, and you will live safely in the land.
19. Then the land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and live there in safety.
23. The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers.
24. Throughout the land that you hold as a possession, you must provide for the redemption of the land.
Leviticus 25 is about the year of the JUBILEE: “Each of you will return to his possession.” In Deuteronomy 15: “Let every creditor release that which he’s lent to his neighbor.” In Isaiah 61: “Release the captives, release the bond servants.”
The Bible realizes that people are not always wise and prudent: they get in over their heads and money problems can make people sick. Also the Lord hates inequality. There always have been people who are more clever, see opportunities where others pass them by. So they get rich, and, as Solomon advised us (Proverbs 30: 8) “Keep falsehood and lies far from me; give me neither poverty nor riches, but give me only my daily bread.”
The Lord, in his infinite wisdom, knowing human nature, decreed that every so often all debts be cancelled, all lands restored to its former owners, and all bond servants be freed.
That would prevent people from both being too rich or too poor.
People have not changed. Two Thousand Years ago Jesus went back to his roots: Nazareth. (See Luke 4). He knew the situation there. He knew that people in his hometown were in debt to some shysters, who controlled the town, but were prominent in the synagogue. Jesus, never one to shun the truth, said that the town should practice JUBILEE. (Luke 4: 18-19) That was the last thing they wanted to hear, so they set out to kill him.
Shakespeare comes to mind: This is a famous phrase said by Polonius in Act-I, Scene-III of William Shakespeare’s play, Hamlet. Polonius counsels his son Laertes before he embarks on his visit to Paris. He says, “Neither a borrower nor a lender be; / For loan oft loses both itself and friend.”
To be continued next week: THE MONEY OF THE FUTURE,